What can YOU carry on your head…?

I have tried to capture various instances of people carrying items on their heads. Everyone knows how to and most people do. It is a way of life and of carrying items. I imagine this is partly why most the people here have excellent posture. I wonder how their necks can handle it though. The one picture I was not able to get was a man carrying a generator on his head. Maybe I will get it before we leave.

 

 

 

One of our first experiences when we were here is when Nkansah was showing us how “easy” it was to carry Nate’s backpack on his head.

 

I could not believe these guys carrying giant chainsaws and generators on their heads.

 

Young kids are also always carrying stuff on their heads, most often water in buckets. The girl above is in Sankubenase and the the girl below is outside Elmina Castle in Cape Coast.

 

This man is definitely maximizing the space around his body in which he carries his products. (Aburi)

 

For some reason this one makes me think of a circus. These are clothes which are used to wash. (Koforidua)

 

The photo above is one of the smaller loads of lumber I have seen a lady carrying (as you can see below). Most often they have a baby strapped to their back as well. The other day I saw a lady at the farm with a machete in one hand, baby on the back, and a full load on her head. I am not sure how they do it!

(Photo copyright Matt Barr)

 

This is Junior fetching some water for me and the soccer team the day we played with Miche. That is 3.75 gallons of water by the way. (copyright Matt Barr)

 

 

This was the first kid to offer to carry my bag for money rather than just demanding or begging it. He spoke French only. I absolutely hired him and support entrepreneurism…if that is a word. (Accra)

 

At least if this guy falls he will be protected from all the pillows. (Accra)

 

This man has an entire sunglasses store on his head. (Accra – I think)

 

Sister of Clement (whose house we couch surfed at in Tamale) carrying my bag inside. (Tamale)

 

As we waited for our bus which was about 6 hours late this lady satisfied our snack cravings. (Tamale)

 

Girl helping out mom with her chop bar. (Tamale)

 

The lady on the left is carrying meat pies. Many food items are sold to people in tro tros and on the street, all from their head. The man in the middle has a sewing machine on his head.

 

This cute girl begged me to take her photo. She is carrying a giant tub of water. (Cape Three Points)

 

Nate helping one of our neighbors to the taxi with their bag. (Cape Three Points)

 

We saw these ladies heading home from the farm (8 miles each way by foot by the way). The crazy thing is these two were walking faster than us, in flip flops, and through the rain.

 

And to finish off the post, our very own Maddie and Chloee carrying a mattress to the guest house for the Miche/World Joy reps arrival. Just working our way in to the culture!

Teach a man to fish…you feed him for life…

We came to Ghana with the mission of teaching business development classes, mentoring, consulting, and providing micro-loans. Chloee and I are teaching partners and Nate and Maddie are partners. Chloe and I teach in Abomosu and Sankubenase while Nate and Maddie teach in Akokom and Asunafo (as well as a private class for four students from Kwabeng). This takes up most of our time.

 

When we first arrived in Abomosu we went around the villages meeting our current loan recipients. We assessed their needs and provided consulting and mentoring to them. We also took each of their pictures so we could create a profile database on each loanee. We constantly heard how grateful the people were for the loans given and how much it has helped improve their lives.

 

 

Spending some time getting to know one of the current loan recipients.

 

 

We each taught two classes a week in the respective towns listed above. We taught a Tuesday/Thursday class in one town and a Wednesday/Friday class in the other. We had Stephen Abu, Sr. (dad) and Nkansah interpret for us. Early into the class we had David Tetteh translate as well. He has definitely been the best student in the classes Chloee and I teach.

 

We took the lesson plans developed by previous interns and adapted them to our classes. We set up the classes in a way which allowed for constant interaction and role-playing of real life examples. We broke them into teams to practice principle we were teaching and each night the students were assigned homework. Each class was designed to teach a section of what would be required in a simplified business plan. By the end of the class they had developed their entire business plan specific to their business.

 

We found some major challenges early on. A majority of the people are illiterate and do not speak English. We are very blessed to have great translators committed to the program to help us. They really struggled doing math as well. Paying themselves a salary is a foreign concept. People also live on GMT (Ghana Maybe Time). We were lucky to have people show up by halfway through the class. We started to extend the classes a half hour to an hour because most people showed up late. Despite the challenges, the people have been very excited to be there. They have a desire to better their lives and they work hard to learn things which are completely foreign. We really hope to improve their lives in even the smallest ways. We hope that we can instill upon them an understanding of their potential. We want them to become self-sufficient and rich. My favorite parts of class were when they were teaching each other and answering each others questions. It is when they could do that I felt we had done a good job.

 

The next step is providing the loans and deciding who is not going to qualify. We have the privilege to have full autonomy in deciding who we give loans to. We have to be careful not to be too subjective. Currently we have over a 95% collection rate in Ghana and we want to keep that number as high as possible.

 

 

Lesson preparations

 

Taking in the Orange Fanta…keeping the minds well rested and ready!

 

Students calculating margins together.

 

David Tetteh (our translator and best friend) talking to the class.

 

Edward, one of our students in Abomosu, trying to be the first to figure out gross margin. The winner would get “toffee” (candy) and a large case of water sachets.

 

Lydia ended up being the winner and was quite pleased with herself. They LOVE praise, even a big round of applause and cheers of excitement got them going. They LOVED to be rewarded with candy too.

 

Our Abomosu Class (We are obviously pretty easy to spot)

 

The church where we taught in Sankubenase

 

Group breakouts

 

Chloee teaching (with about half our class missing or late)

 

Chloee and I worked great together teaching.

 

 

Chloee spending time with David working on his business plan.

 

Sankubenase

 

Creating student profiles

 

Group breakouts – teaching each other.

 

Sankubenase class picture.

 

 

More teaching…

 

 

Nate and I switched teaching one night and I went with Maddie to Akokom. They teach earlier in the day in a school (in large part because there is no power). It is an hour journey across a river in a canoe and through the bus just to get there.

Everyone was at least 30 minutes late (welcome to Ghana Time!)

 

 

 

Nkansah is our loan collector. We went with him to make a month’s worth of deposits in our bank at Kwabeng. It is the Atiwa Rural Bank. Nkansah was SO nervous carrying around all that cash in his pockets.